WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR MONTHLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. Dodos are best kept in museums these days. net_efekt, CC BY

My wildlife friends and I often talk about what species we would bring back from extinction. I am torn between the dodo and the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. This was once a speculative, sci-fi debate but not anymore. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned, conservation biologists have muted the idea and the process of de-extinction – bringing back dead species – is coming closer to reality.

De-extinction can be achieved by one of two means: selective breeding or cloning. In the selective breeding method we try to re-create extinct species such as the aurochs (extinct large cattle from Europe and Asia) by looking for their surviving genes among existing cattle and breeding animals to favour these genes. Then you compare the genome of the resulting animals with that for aurochs until you have what is genetically an auroch.

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject.

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.

What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology?

Well, everything, actually!

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.

And so another week begins. Me, Archie the Jack
Russell, Lilith the black kitten and Julia the Psychic are sitting in the
office. Everyone else is doing their own inimitable thing, whilst I am trying
desperately to wake myself up before Tammy the intern arrives. Graham has taken
the car into Bideford for its MOT (the results of which I am mildly dreading)
and my eldest stepdaughter and her husband are on their way down to spend a week
with us. All I want to do is sleep...

The latest issue of Gonzo Weekly (#112) will soon
be available to read at www.gonzoweekly.com, and to download at http://www.gonzoweekly.com/pdf/. It
has Rocket Scientists on the front cover, and an interview with the band inside,
Jon lookls at the legendary unreleased Beatles music, we send Pete from
Sendelica to a desert island, critique the new Robert Plant biography, and there
are shows from the multi-talented Neil Nixon at Strange Fruit and from M Destiny
at Friday Night Progressive, and the titular submarine dwellers are still lost
at sea, whilst Xtul are still causing havoc in the forest. There is also a
collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and manatees looking for
booze (OK, nothing to do with alcoholic sirenians, but I got carried away with
things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part
is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you
have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly
dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power
chaps, we have to share it!

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to
write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and
want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and
spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to
read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more
traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we
all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine
(mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But
it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also
do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about
it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/…/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit…

* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to
things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not
responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest
guv!

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an
old hippy of 55 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song
by Frank Zappa puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown
cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish, and sometimes a
small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his
bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of
social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat?

Read our Journal ... for Free

BUY THE JOURNAL OF CRYPTOZOOLOGY #4

WE ALSO PUBLISH A FREE WEEKLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

Try some buy some?

LATEST HITS

This blasted recession is really beginning to hit. Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...